Prayers, good thoughts, vibes needed

I guess it’s my turn to find myself having a (bad) reason for not being around.

Last Sunday, my sister called in the middle of the night. At first I ignored her, since her name didn’t show up on my caller ID. She called again a couple minutes later, so I figured I’d better answer. Apparently my cousin had called her by finding her number in my grandma’s (who passed away late last year) calendar. My dad had been in a motorcycle accident. He had a back injury. They were flying him to a better hospital.

After a few minutes getting oriented and calling the hospital he went to first, I asked “should I be at the other hospital?” The nursed answered, “If it was me, yeah. Definitely.”

So my boyfriend and I packed some stuff in a bag in just a few minutes and left at 1 am for a 4 hour drive to the new hospital. (My boyfriend is wonderful.) When we got there, my aunt was there and she didn’t have much information and hadn’t been able to see him before he went to ICU, but she was told that the break was “complete.”

We were finally able to see him around 7 am, and while he didn’t look too terrible, he had no feeling or movement from about mid-chest down.

Fortunately, I was ahead on my work, and I sent a message to my office. They told me to do what I needed to do–we’ll take care of things. So, I stayed with my dad all week, coming back yesterday.

Of course, now that I’m not there, I’m worrying (I had been the only family member there, with a few visits from friends). They had removed his breathing tube and moved him out of ICU the other day, but he had some breathing trouble and ended up re-intubated and back in ICU. They took the tube out again yesterday before I left, but he’s still in ICU and has got a hugely long road to recovery.

I don’t think he’ll get any appreciable function back to his lower body. For a guy who spent his life doing physically active jobs, lots of hunting and riding motorcycle, this will be really, really tough. He will need lots of thoughts and prayers.

I plan on heading to visit on weekends for a while, and work my butt off during the week, so I will probably neglect the WE website for a while (I don’t need any temptation), including the forum.

I’m not asking for any assistance, but if anyone wants to, a family member has set up an online fund for his recovery. https://www.everribbon.com/ribbon/view/7534